Almond Horns - Mandelhörnchen

For Zeke's bar mitzvah, I wanted to bake something primarily for Zeke. I told him he didn't have to share his goodies with anyone. (For Ezra's, since we were a small group and we hung out at their house, I baked more generic things.) Zeke did share them, but received his own private stash and was quite pleased about it.

Since the Hausmanns are yekkehs on both sides, and indeed the boys already have German citizenship, I picked this treat, mandelhörnchen. I read about them in Smitten Kitchen, but ultimately went with the German version, video linked above. It uses marzipan, which I had in the house and wanted to try. 

There are many discussions of the merits of almond paste vs. marzipan. I took the sprinkles idea from Smitten Kitchen. These are not something Eric ever mentioned, but they are German classics.

This is a European metric recipe translated into American measures, so a little odd. 

7.05 oz marzipan
0.89 cups almond meal or almond flour
1 egg white for the dough
0.83 cups confectioners sugar (= powdered sugar)
2 t lemon juice
1 egg-white for dipping
4 oz sliced almonds
1 cup dark chocolate (more or less)


Put the marzipan, almond flour, confectioners sugar, egg white, and lemon juice into a bowl and mix it all together.
With wet fingers, shape 6 Crescents from the dough. (these would be huge. I did 9 and would go smaller still).
Dip each crescent first into the egg white and then turn it in the almond slices until it's well covered.
Set on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper.
Preheat the oven to 350°F and bake the almond crescents for 10 to 15 minutes or a little longer if you want them more crisp.

Let them cool and in the meantime, melt the chocolate on the induction Melt setting in a frying pan.
Once the almond horns have cooled completely, dip the ends of the horns into the chocolate. [Sprinkle on the jimmies!]
Let the chocolate set and then enjoy.

Not bad for a first try, and they were well-received!